


The Art of Life

by Odamaki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen, Tea, tea!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just tea. For John Watson, ideally it should be a bit orange, in a mug. Ordinary. Teashop AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Life

**Author's Note:**

> “When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?”  
> ― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
> 
> For Mphelmsman. The prompt was 'teapot'. Title comes from a quote by Kazuko Okakura
> 
> (I do not give permission to repost, reproduce or archive this fanfic in part or in it's entirety to any other website except with prior written consent provided by myself, nor any profit be made from any of these works under any circumstances whatsoever.)

It’s a small place tucked behind the drycleaners- John wouldn’t have given it a second glance if he hadn’t been looking for it. The red door, heavier than it looks, swings open silently under his hand.

John is not a fancy tea drinker. He never has been. His technique involves mashing the teabag around in the mug until the water is roughly orange with an oil slick on the surface, and then he adds milk. He likes it plain and cheap. Nonetheless he can appreciate this place is a connoisseur’s jewel. 

The man is cold and uninterested, until John hands him the slip with the order on it. Until John asks hesitantly, ‘have you got something like that?’ and then a faint twinkle comes to life in his eyes. John watches, with poorly disguised fascination as the man works. He patters back and forth on bare feet, long fingers fluttering over the many drawers and jars of tea like pale hummingbirds, folding up a package of tea in an expert twist. With his dressing gown flapping around his calves, cloak-like, he makes a wonderful mock-emperor of his tiny kingdom. 

John reaches for his wallet and misses the discrete and analytical glance that is thrown his way, looking up in time to see the shopkeeper instead reaching for a teapot. 

“Oh, I d-“

“Service,” the other abruptly cuts him off, and then adds, more gently. “Sit.” He himself hops onto a stool behind the counter, firing up a complex array of gas-tubes and rings, the kettle crowning the top. John, somewhat more awkwardly, takes a seat. It strikes him that the shopkeeper might be more than a touch odd, and more than a little passionate, and perhaps not a little lonely. One hand rests on the teapot laid on the counter, fingertips caressing over the clay seemingly absentmindedly, like with a favourite cat. 

The man speaks, breaking into his thoughts. “Afghanistan, or Iraq?” 

It takes John a moment to answer; he’s so surprised by the question. “Afghanistan. How did you-?” but the kettle hisses, and the man is busy again, pulling tiny packets from yet another cabinet of drawers. Deftly, he tips hot water over the pot, a cup whisked out of seemingly nowhere, and begins a complex sequence of put and take that leaves John bewildered and apprehensive. He’s not a fancy tea-drinker. He’s not sure he’s going to like it. 

The shopkeeper slaps down a modern timer on the counter, hauls himself back up onto the tall stool, knees tucked up almost to the level of his shoulders, and props his hands under his chin; waiting. 

The teapot brews.

The silence grows awkward, punctuated by the shopkeeper’s right foot, jigging impatiently against the leg of the stool. 

“Um. It’s a nice place you have here. Very nice,” John says, giving the place another needless look around. “I didn't know it was here-“

“But your therapist advised you to avoid caffeine because of your traumatic nightmares and as you hate both chamomile and peppermint, and being as the mini-mart has limited options and you dislike walking too far, you came here. Fire her, she’s an idiot. I have a vacant room upstairs.” 

John gapes, flabbergasted. “Sorry, what?”

“Room, upstairs. For rent.” The man inhales as though he’s just realized something and then the alarm beeps and he’s off again, tinkering with the teapot. 

“I-uh, listen. Thanks, but, I… don’t actually know you-oh.”

There’s a teacup in front of him. It’s brown, plain earthenware with no handle. It might possibly be homemade. The tea in it steams, and to his amazement it looks like… ordinary tea. Nothing fancy. Nothing herbal, despite the weird packets that have been bandied about. It’s just tea. John supposes after all that effort, it’s going to be rude not to try it.

“Thanks,” he says again, and lifts it to his lips; blows on it to cool it. Tries not to notice the man watching him. Sips. Falls into his past with a drop of his heart that takes his breath away. 

The tea is not good. It’s slightly over-stewed and it tastes rather cheap. The milk isn’t fresh- it’s UHT, and there’s a funny underlying whiff of latex and dust. It’s Afghanistan. It’s the tea he had time and time again in those hot exhausted moments coming out of surgery. It’s the war- the proverbial storm in the literal fucking teacup. He closes his eyes and puts the cup down carefully and stands up, needing to move- to breathe. It’s not horror washing through him- it’s a sudden and unexpected sensation of life. Life against the odds. He hasn’t felt alive in weeks.

When he opens his, the other man is still watching him cautiously. 

“That…was...” it takes John a moment to find the word. “Incredible.”

The man unfolds on the stool, frowning to himself slightly. He’s puzzled. “Was it really?”

“How did you-? Everything. Every detail. I don’t know what to say. It’s amazing. You- you’re amazing.”

The skin around the man’s eyes is drawn taut like a mask, but the spark somewhere under the disguise remains, and he’s making minute shifts with his jaw that seem to be the aftershocks of a deep-down smile, hidden out of sight somewhere in the centre of his body, radiating out.

“That’s not what people usually say.”

“What do people usually say?”

“This tea’s shit.”

John laughs and Sherlock says nothing as his cane slips to the carpet, unnoticed.


End file.
